Portuguese Egg Tarts

Don't we always have a reason for choosing what we bake. Especially when your to-bake-list is growing to be as tall as you are. I find myself wanting to bake brownies when I'm feeling down, lemon meringue pies when I'm busy at work, cookies when I'm hungry at work, Hamburgers...possibly any time of the week. Then, there are the miscellaneous items. This one goes to Mr Kelvin. I'm honestly just trying to be funny. At the same time, "Dem! those pictures made me crave for egg tarts!"

Let's cut to the chase. Portuguese egg tarts! I would never have known if it weren't for Auto-correct (Thank you, Steve Jobs) that I have been misspelling Portuguese. First, I must say, I didn't use puff pastry. I used the flaky pastry recipe from this post. Reason: I am not confident enough to make myself some puff, plus, this flaky crust isn't that far apart (aside from the 50+ less layers of happiness).

Second, this egg tart filling recipe is not my own recipe. I found it in a mysteriously secluded website around 3 years ago, when copyrights didn't cost you millions of greens. Unfortunately, the only thing i could remember was that it had an all pink background. However, do not get worked up about it, the recipe  does not differ much from other recipes. You see, custards/ Egg yolk + milk + sugar is bound to taste awesome! 

Lastly, I've baked this a few times too many. However, I've always used a ready-made puff pastry. Hence, for those of you who need to whip up anything quick and impressive, this one goes to you. Remember, the excess egg whites could easily be stored to be used for other cakes such as "Angel food cake, White Eggs cake, Buttercream, etc etc". And if you have extra shells, this is one awesome way to add another dessert to the menu.

Butter Flaky Pie Crust

Ingredients

• 310 g all-purpose flour
• 3 g salt
• 225 g butter, chilled and diced
• 120 ml ice water

1. In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in water, a tablespoon at a time, until mixture forms a ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.
2. Roll dough out to fit a 9 inch pie plate. Place crust in pie plate. Press the dough evenly into the bottom and sides of the pie plate.

Important hints:

Keep everything cold! As long as something begins to melt or separate, chill it!

Portugese Egg Tart

Makes 24 Tarts

Ingredients:

Puff Pastry (3 layers of 30cm x 30xm pastry) or 1 batch of the above.

 10 Egg Yolks

 2/3 Cup Heavy Cream

 2/3 Cup Milk

 1/3 Cup Sugar

 2/3 tsp Vanilla essence

Directions:

1.      Cut out equal amount (weighing helps) of dough and mould it into the muffin tin. Make sure that the dough covers the whole mould and not shorter than the filling. (the fillings may overflow and cause a burnt overlay.)

3.     Mix all the ingredients together. 

4.     Pour in the egg yolk mixture, 2/3 full.

5.     Bake it at 190 celcius and place the tray on the lower rack.

6.     It will take around 45-60 minutes. Just until the top is burnt. 

While baking, the filling will rise rapidly into little domes. Do not worry, after baking, let it sit and cool. 

Chocolate Filling

1/3 cup Heavy Cream

1/3 cup Dark/milk Chocolate

1 Tbsp Unsweetened Cocoa.

Directions:

1. Melt chocolate in a double boiler and combine cream and cocoa. 

2. Bake the shells at 190 celsius for 15 minutes. 

3. Pour the chocolate filling until 2/3 full. Bake for another 25 minutes and you have yourself a fudgy, sticky, gooey, chocolate tart!

Peace out,

Jes